


god save our young blood

by juliettes



Category: SKAM (France)
Genre: Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Light Angst, M/M, On the Run, Pining, Sharing a Bed, but they're thick as thieves, kind of???
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-08
Updated: 2019-07-08
Packaged: 2020-06-24 18:33:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19729396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/juliettes/pseuds/juliettes
Summary: ("fuck it.")("— you don't mean that.")





	god save our young blood

**Author's Note:**

> ahhhh...... i'm excited! originally written for a prompt on my [tumblr](http://unquaintly.tumblr.com/), but then it got long-ish and strange and thus, it is now here. kinda daunting to post but oh well. hope it's to your liking! for nat, love you. 
> 
> also my username is now juliettes because shakespeare, enough said. <3

nevada is hot. the kind of hot that gets under your few layers, dry and uncomfortable, the kind of hot that makes the air you breathe smother your lungs. it's dusty hot. dry hot. _nevada_ hot. the kind of hot that stifles the outskirts of las vegas into empty spaces. the kind of hot that leaves no one behind — no mercy, no survivors, populated only by silhouettes of living wraiths.

last night, they robbed a casino.

three nights ago — a hotel.

there's money stuffed in a black duffel bag under the backseat of the car, tied with rubber bands, bills, papery and thin. lucas likes the smell of it and the smell of gasoline. sickening, both in terribly similar ways — ways in which eliott understands, hands on the steering wheel, sun glancing off his aviators. the 250sl purrs beneath his legs. lucas watches eliott's fingers syncopate to the beat of shitty electronica, vehicle kicking up sand as it speeds past small towns full of drought, his smile bordered on the right side of _wrong_ , _wrong_ , _wrong_. lucas shouldn't be there at all, but eliott only had to ask, and lucas would never tell.

they pass a bottle of water back and forth.

"you okay?" eliott says as soon as lucas doesn't give it to him soon enough. dust makes the desolate background appear a grave shade of ivory. everything smells of rust and herbs.

"could be better."

he's dressed in funeral blacks, dark ripped jeans and an uncommonly clean button-down, fit just right, buttons undone to the middle of his chest with hasty fingers. _somebody else's fingers_. not his, of course, never his, just the faintest idea lucas calls his imagination. eliott drives on the lonesome 93, light all around him while they chase sundown to the next town over, dripping over his shoulders, like the son of an old god that he is. he's dressed in funeral darkness they've been dipping their feet in for a while. somehow eliott happens to look as though he hasn't.

"maybe if you turned off this crappy music i'd be okay." lucas doesn't mean it, looking out into the nothingness, the dust suffocating his feelings without any warning, noise a buffer to thoughts too complicated.

eliott flashes a grin, eyes hidden behind his sunglasses. "i know you like it."

"do you now?"

the music shifts into some other song of the same variety, tinny and weak against the wind and the engine and the reckless pace lucas calls a heart. he turns it up and studies the side of lucas' face. "you told me," eliott says then, looking back onto the highway, words half lost to sound. lucas lets out a snort, eliott smiles, tapping his fingers against worn leather. "i remember you did."

"maybe you've forgotten."

they were friends, are friends — ultimately business partners nonetheless, money the relationship and a wrong sort of trust the transaction. sullen greed and obnoxious feelings are its ugly side effects (on lucas' part, at least) because it's always him, just him, loving first and leaving last. above all their relationship is rooted in a platonic kind of faith. a kind with lines that stand dormant, ones he can't cross. "macau," he finishes the last of the water, mindlessly, faced forward still.

macau was eighteen months ago. polished shoes and pressed slacks and dice rolled and money blown, all bright, bright lights and a tipsy kiss shared on a rooftop overlooking a city they believed could be conquered. questions hung but never answered. neons went by too fast. they sat on a ledge too many floors up, legs swinging in the space between buildings, youth tainted by the dirty things they smoked. it was a dangerous game they played, but there was a certain allurement to it, knowing how easy the fall could be. lucas doesn't miss it, he thinks, when all it leaves now are bitter feelings, bruised and unresolved, full of holes.

"maybe you've forgotten," lucas shrugs, pressing his palms against his knees.

there's a moment of silence in which eliott takes a pack of marlboro from the centre console, cigarette between his fingers, red too sharp against the hues of the desert. lucas holds out a lighter from his jean pocket, lighting it for him. "maybe it's that things have changed," he says through the smoke, voice strangely soft, and it makes lucas' face heat up. he could hear eliott in the middle of a hurricane if he tried.

 _they haven't_ , lucas wants to say, but the words never come out.

"probably."

"you don't think so?"

the question is meaningless, coming from him. he blows smoke out of his nostrils and it dances blue under the small patch of light by his face. deers roam somewhere deep in the landscape, but they drive too fast to see, too far from places meant for leaving. it hurts to look at eliott for long, a boy with sharp edges concealed beneath all his softness, but maybe he's already been bleeding for a while, he thinks.

"— i wouldn't know," lucas replies, simply. it's a lie they both know. "what's the difference anyway."

clouds seem to darken overhead, rolling in behind them, damp and heavy, eerily characteristic of a summer storm. eliott feigns insult. "not liking borgore anymore?" he reaches over for the briefest of moment, nails digging lightly into the flesh on the nape of lucas' neck, and suddenly lucas is struggling to breathe. "lucas, it's a _sacrilege_ , you know."

pretending it was a normal thing is easy, lucas' fingers disappear in and out of the holes in his jeans and mutters, "we've been sinning for a while now, so it probably doesn't even compare."

no reply comes. often grim understanding is all there is.

route 93 is made of dead things, or things that cling on to every last bit of life they can. some fail, others don't, or others thrive, bloom, flourish. when rain falls some revive in between the cracks on the ground. some stay dead, never truly dead, though, just dead enough for another season or two to pass. july has fallen through the gaps and lucas can taste the storm before it approaches. he squeezes his eyes shut, feeling the way eliott glances at him, sharp and insistent, inhaling deeply. and then they hear the rattling thunder before they see the lightning, and _then_ — and then, it rains, lightly at first, droplets, and it pours until everything around them is covered by a glassy sheet draped across the world.

lucas twists around to scramble for the duffle bag. "the cover, eliott!" his words hardly carry, but eliott shakes his head, sheepish. "jesus—"

"i forgot," rain catches on the sharp edges of his face, sunglasses held between the wheel and his fingers, an unnerving smile tugging the corners of his lips up. lucas sinks back into his seat, bag on his lap, laughing a breathy sort of cackle. the vehicle huffs under them, silent beneath the heavy fall of rain.

he slows down, wipers purposeless at this point, until eliott stops entirely on the empty road in the middle of nowhere. air is thick as leftover heat seethes beneath the thunder and the lightning and the rain. it gets under his clothes onto his skin, cold and mildly uncomfortable.

"we're in the middle of a thunderstorm and you want to stop and feel the rain?" lucas scoffs, smiling weakly, watching eliott jump out, hair plastered to his forehead, eyes ocean-clear. "— what the _fuck_ , eliott?"

veiny lightning crisscrosses the sky into two. " _i swear it was an accident_ ," he grins over his shoulder like the hundred-dollar bills aren't close to ruin, soaked through like they both are, from head to toe, eyes looking back up in wonderment, not apologetic at all.

lucas climbs out of the car, grip slippery as he does so, door shuddering as it slams shut. rain blurs his vision and mud streaks his converse shoes, once white, now gray and worn. he follows eliott to the hood of the convertible, before he's standing in front of him, stepping through saltbushes. in the rain, partly, maybe, possibly — eliott looks at him like he's seeing him for the first time, button-down clung onto his torso, sticking until lucas doesn't know where to look anymore. rain drips from lucas' fingertips, eliott makes space for him; he sits, headache forming. "the money's going to get wet," he starts, hoarsely, glancing skyward where it's dark, so dark, almost as dark as nighttime, color unchanging. eliott's stare seems to burn through all the incongruous cold.

their eyes meet. there's a cigarette down to its filter in his hand and a sharpness in his stare.

"fuck it."

"— you don't mean that."

"i do."

"bullshit," it's almost a sigh, tired.

love is made of breathy allegories that used to appall him; longing, ache, hope, things he couldn't fathom in the past tense, and he coughs on the synonyms in his throat as eliott shoves him a bit, playfully, wryly, adverb, adverb. boys going around doing what boys do best. eliott laughs and laughs, and lucas pushes and pushes, standing up in the rain, hands shoving his shoulders, and his shoulders are what eliott often likes to touch. they touch too much, lucas overly permissive.

damp hair is all over their eyes, soaked down to the bone, and eliott is holding onto the sides of his jacket while lucas' fingers are curled around the collar of his shirt. under a single layer of fabric his skin is cool. they stand there for a while, as the tempest goes on around them, light capricious like the strange beat to his heart lucas has found has grown increasingly worse. similar to a sort of disease, if lucas recalls correctly. _lovesick_.

 _i'm in love with him_ , lucas thinks, watching the rain slide down the contours of his face as lightning starts its taming. his smile, his voice, the vocabulary between his teeth and the pretty hunger in the holes of his ribcage.

lucas is first to let go (for once, maybe), the movement fast. it takes too many seconds for eliott's hands to fall to his side.

" _bullshit_ ," lucas whispers again as he moves back, farther than he should, and it takes too much effort not to get closer.

"i wouldn't lie," eliott shakes his head, taking a step toward him. he reaches out, lucas flinches, fingers hovering over the hair stuck to his forehead as if wanting to brush it away, never touching, never close enough. he carries on, "— not to you, i won't."

words are devotions thrown in the wind. flimsy promises tied around the ends of their fingertips — a red string of fate entangled, frayed and mismatched and full of loose threads, though not loose enough itself, and lucas often finds himself wondering who'll snap it first. he raises a finger to eliott's chest, feeling the bones underneath his skin, and mutters: "i'll drive the rest of the way."

rain has gone even-tempered, thunder growing softer by the second.

he drops his hand. eliott blinks, flustered, maybe. silence hangs, neither of them willing to cross lines to the point of no return. "yeah, sure, if you want," he nods after a while, tucking his hands inside his pockets. he's restless, lucas notices, and he doesn't even know why.

for a while they stay rooted in their spot. but eliott turns then, cigarette ground under his shoe and in his pocket, walking away with long strides, and lucas is left to stare at his back for a few seconds, before he turns the other way, climbing into the driver's seat.

forty minutes sees hair on lucas' forehead dry and the wipers squeaking and a dirty sign leading the way into a blank hole of a town. classical plays from the speakers on his phone, improper against the ugly backdrop of the ugly things they do. _debussy_. eliott is chewing on his sixth mint, eyes on the power lines that stretch across the saturnine sky. it's dark, maybe it's nighttime, maybe the storm is still sullen — but there are no stars out, no stars at all.

with a shudder the 250sl shuts off, parked in front of a sleazy motel with a door full of graffiti. eliott grabs the black duffel from the floor, and it hangs loose from his grasp as he follows lucas in, raspberry neon greeting them when they enter. there's no one at the front desk. lucas stands, idly. eliott clutches the bag tighter.

"how many rooms?" a bored voice finally cuts through the silence, rasped like a chain-smoker.

lucas startles, english language small on his tongue. "— just two, please."

"how many nights?"

"one."

the girl serving them appears from behind a wall, bleached hair and strawberry gum between her teeth, and lucas can smell it on her breath. she raises her eyebrows. lucas shrinks into himself, body trying to make itself smaller, sixteen all over again. he hears eliott shift on his weight. _lucy_ — says the tag — runs a manicured nail over the guestbook, eyebrows drawn together. only nine names are on it. he counted the number of doors on the way in. "sorry, there's only one room vacant," she stays flat.

"but there's fifteen rooms here and _nine_ names on that." lucas points at the list for emphasis, probably looking weary and desperate. "that's not possible."

she rolls her eyes. "sir, if you don't want to get a dusty lung there's just one room vacant. do you want it or not?"

eliott leans forward from behind him. he realizes that he's — anxious. it's been long, too long, and eliott is everywhere, touching everything, and lucas doesn't know how much longer he'll stay until he needs to go. it downright scares him, even, the knowledge of what another person can do to him, whether knowingly or unknowingly, crossing lines before he knows he's crossed them. denial is simple. nothing else about it is. perhaps it was bound to happen, the process to it slow — because love is illogical and non-linear, and now eliott's shoulder is brushing against his as he stands beside him. "we'll take it," eliott is fast to say.

keys are dropped on the table, cash exchanged. lucas sighs heavily, metal cool on his palm, stalling when they get to their door. eliott looks at him, eyes unreadable while they wander around his face. he's a silent observer, despite the words that seem to fill up every corner of his body. lucas clears his throat, averting his thoughts somewhere else. "you can do the honors." he holds the key out to him.

"okay," eliott snorts, eyebrows raised.

it takes a bit of fumbling before the door unlocks, giving way to a room full of water stains on wallpaper and cigarette burns on the carpet. he exhales, eliott drops the bag on the floor. a queen bed sits between two side tables; on it two pillows, one paisley duvet. "i'll take the floor," is the first thing lucas says into the musty silence. he winces as soon as the sentence falls out, a faded shade of brown barely covering dirty smudges.

there's an abrupt halt of a zipper. "why?"

lucas shrugs. there are reasons, yes, however those reasons are not fit to share. between him and eliott — he could probably see through him. it isn't hard. it's just that he isn't sure if eliott is seeing him, even while he's looking straight at him. when lucas turns his head, he sees eliott frown. he mumbles, " _just because_."

"we could share."

it's an unexpected sort of offer, the words plain and simple, as if they don't mean anything at all. lucas swallows. "i don't think—"

"ah."

"— we probably won't fit," he points out, awkwardly. "i move a lot when i sleep."

the silence gets anxious, before eliott says, "what are you going to sleep on, then?"

"i'll manage." with a soft exhale lucas turns back around. "it's just one night," he shrugs, feigning indifference, pulling the curtains to one side. outside the sky has cleared, setting sun dyeing it shades of pink and orange and red and blue, like a monet, dissipating quickly as minutes go by. "i'm getting food from downstairs, you want anything?"

he's in the middle of untucking the sheets from the bed when lucas asks the question. "whatever you're getting." eliott's face, lucas notices, is paler than usual.

"if you want."

downstairs the selection is abject, cold sandwiches and a coin operated coffee machine. no one's there, apart from a teenager who gives him incorrect change. lucas lets him keep the extra. he balances two cups of black coffee and two cheese and tomato sandwiches up a flight of stairs, eliott opens the door for him. they eat in silence. the tv flickering on in the background eventually gets too mundane to bear, so they turn it off. rarely do they get silence to themselves, because they're running, always running — and now that there is lucas' forgotten how to fill it. there's small talk, yes. they talk about the rain, but not about what happened. lucas wants to go, lucas wants to stay.

 _i'm going to wash up_. spare clothes were haphazardly shoved above the paper money, no distinction between his or eliott's.

he runs a bath and goes under holding his breath, counting, waiting for quiet. the water goes cold too fast. it was never hot enough to begin with, and it's comical cruelty, not spending the money they've taken, a mocking pathetic fallacy in bitter truths. his sight in the mirror, the gray looking back at him, shakes him back to reality. features he's grown into for the past nineteen years, the blue eyes, the pointed nose, have somehow grown distant again.

"lucas, you okay in there?" eliott's voice doesn't startle him. he's always the only one.

"yeah, be out in a sec—," lucas spits toothpaste on the sink, and it spirals down the sink in foamy white, until water runs transparent.

eliott is all there when he opens the door. "i thought you died." his syllables are hoarse.

"it'll take more than that to get rid of me," lucas scoffs, just to deviate his mind from the honesty of him.

"i thought you were gone."

maybe he's not the only one who's thought of leaving, but maybe he's not the only who's thought of staying, either. "i'm going to bed," lucas says, then, briskly ignoring. he has to step around eliott. "we need to get up early tomorrow."

a soft sigh is his response. the door clicks shut behind him. _fuck_. lucas presses his lips into a thin line, fists clenching and unclenching, uncomfortable inside the cage of his own body. avarice sings to him, firm and unfailing. when you grow up with nothing, you want everything — to consume and devour and absorb, afraid of letting go, afraid of losing things. blankets and pillows are set up a couple of paces away from the bed, not his doing. he crawls under it anyway. his body is tired, so tired, his heart, too. the robe separating him from the floor is soft, but itself hard, uncomfortable, cold and unpleasant. eliott comes out of the bathroom not long after, light washing the wall opposite a sallow shade of white. there's mint that follows him, lucas notices, climbing into bed, and it's his last thought before eliott mutters, " _goodnight_."

"night."

his breathing flutters in darkness, trying to fall asleep, slumber warring. from beside lucas the mattress groans as eliott turns and turns and turns, as restless as how lucas feels, or more, even. the numbers on the clock keep on changing. it's the coffee they swallowed, probably, if that's to blame. lucas stands. trying any more would be pointless, regretting not taking up eliott's offer to share.

"lucas?" he hears shuffling then, sighs, fabric and bed springs. lucas doesn't move from his spot. "— why are you still awake?"

it takes a moment for lucas to reply. he tugs on the bottom of his dirty sweater with cold fingers. "i couldn't sleep," he sniffs, aware that it isn't an answer. "that's all it is. i usually can't."

it's not new information, not really. at the end of the bed, eliott's pupils are glimmers in the darkness, room illuminated faintly by silvery moonlight. they look at each other, until lucas isn't sure where he's looking anymore. he feels himself blush, eyes on his bare feet. eliott doesn't say anything for a while. when lucas glances up, he sees him swallow.

"you can sleep here, if you want."

eliott's voice cuts through the strange blend of night and silence. it's worry, the way he vocalizes his letters, caution, maybe. there's a spot he makes on the bed beside him, lucas notices, far enough that they probably wouldn't touch. "i move—"

"i won't—," eliott falters, scratching his nose, a habit when he's nervous. "i won't touch you."

lucas crosses his arms over his chest, face growing warmer by the second. "it's not that," he shifts on his weight, everything hurting, and he sounds half-hearted. "i don't think it'd be a good idea."

"you need to sleep."

"i can, just not now."

"please?" there's the softest hint of desperation in his voice. it's a voice that has always caused lucas problems, weak against its hushed tones. lucas takes faltering steps then, sitting on the edge of a mattress too old to bear the weight of two people. "you can try sleeping on the bed instead of the floor," eliott offers, quietly. "maybe because it's not as hard it'd help."

"maybe," lucas shrugs.

they choose not to speak anymore. he gingerly slides under the covers while eliott's turned the other way, spare pillow partitioning them. it's warm, cosy, but not hot, lulling him into slumber before he's torn out of it again. when the spare pillow gets lost between, the sky has shifted into muted navy. he's gravitated closer somehow, listening to eliott's light breathing, stiff in an attempt not to move. but it doesn't necessarily mean he's sleeping. "you're not asleep," eliott eventually comments, face too close to his, and lucas feels as if he's sinking into fatal waters. he touches the tips of his hair, action involuntary.

"it's hard to." _when you're here_.

"me too," eliott stretches, close enough to touch. the moonlight gives his skin a porcelain like quality, making him look inhuman almost. he stretches, only to curl back in, hand hovering over lucas' hair. they don't do this — _affection_. it throws him off. "i'm sorry. can i?"

he nods, unsure. "if you want," he mumbles, failing to hide the color on his cheeks.

"okay."

at first they pat his hair, eyes focusing on them, before they trail down to his face, feather-light, tracing over his features, eyebrows, nose, and then — and then, his lips. they part, unconsciously. eliott seems to suck in a sharp breath. it reverbs, in a bare room with nothing but some furniture and a bag and two boys, barely breathing, sinking further deeper into dark waters. "are you in love with me, lucas lallemant?" he asks.

he breathes weirdly.

panic seizes him and lucas sits up, blankets clinging onto his legs like a lover. "i need to pee—" he blurts, head hurting, vision spinning, already getting out of bed.

"wait—," eliott's fingers wrap around his wrist. he doesn't tug, lucas could pull out of it if he wanted to. fear, desire, love — they flood his insides with heat, pouring out of his body. he lets him hold him for a bit, onto his wrist, before he's crawling on the mattress back towards him, waiting for answers. "you're in love with me."

the statement hangs in the air for a second. "i think so."

" _you're in love with me_ ," eliott breathes, almost a sigh, almost like relief. lucas bites on a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth, and when he gets closer, wrapping arms around his body, breathing against his neck, he lets go of it. everything is lightless and moonlike. then hands touch the sides of his body, gently, warm. "things have changed," eliott mutters. "i called it."

"they haven't," he turns his face away, sounding absurdly lovestruck, reply blunt and too truthful. eliott stares at him, at his face, only contours visible. he can't see how red his lips are, or the red on his cheeks, or any color on him at all. under the covers eliott is holding his hand. lucas huffs, breathless, shrinking, and mumbles: "stop staring."

"things have changed."

"— i've been in love with you for a while now."

eliott grins, eyes in half moons. "they have, now i know that you are. because i've been in love with you from the beginning."

and it's the last thing that is said before he's kissed. lucas hasn't kissed in a long time, not since last year, and it's too eager and too wanting on both sides. eliott kisses in soft ways, albeit longingly so, tasting faintly of toothpaste. he holds onto his face, lucas holds onto his sides. the bed creaks with a precarious noise. eliott presses him into the mattress, dust huffing around them, lust and love sticky-sweet and all-consuming in the reckless proximity — love, love, love.

" _lucas_ ," he coughs, lips slick, hair between lucas' fingers, tousled. it gets too stuffy. they part, but their hands never stop touching.

"what are we?" lucas mutters into his neck.

"what do you mean?"

"are we are a _we_?"

"we've always been a we," eliott says into his hair, fingers tugging lightly at the strands. it soothes him to sleep, somehow, he doesn't know how. "it's lucas and eliott. just us."

" _lucas and eliott_." he inhales, deeply, tight arms hugging him. then he adds: "— but with kissing."

lucas feels him laugh under him, the sound bright yet ever so soft. "but with kissing."

the next day they go north — they don't stay, they go, always leaving, never staying. it's lucas and eliott, a 250sl and a black duffel bag and sky an azure the day after a storm. no rain will come, forecasts predict, monsoon season coming to a brutal end, but those were always hard to foretell to begin with. they run — it's their thing. dressed in funeral blacks against beige dust, money in their pockets, virtuous greed in veins, oxymorons in throats. this is eternal, until it ends, youth kindling a flame that fails to burn out. lucas and eliott run — they run, and run, and run. and lucas thinks they can run forever. and they do it as a _we_.

**Author's Note:**

> weep with me [@unquaintly](http://unquaintly.tumblr.com/)


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